Chicago Bulls, Cleveland Cavaliers Taking Different Paths to Title Contention

Talent, chemistry and health. Those are the three qualities that go into making an NBA champion, and more often than not, the team that can best harness all three at once is the one that will take home the Larry O’Brien Trophy.

The Chicago Bulls and Cleveland Cavaliers have had those aspirations since this summer, but the roadblocks they’ve met along the way have been different.

It’s never been about talent for either team. The Cavs and Bulls both have that in abundance. Cleveland’s big three of LeBron James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love is—on paper, at least—as fearsome as any group in the league. The Bulls came into the season with a finally healthy Derrick Rose, the newly acquired Pau Gasol and a solid core of returning veterans like Taj Gibson, Joakim Noah and Jimmy Butler.

Checking that box was the easy part. It’s the other two—chemistry and health—that have given these teams different kinds of problems.

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When the Cavaliers lured James home and traded for Love, the question was never whether their superstars could stay on the floor. Other than the two weeks James missed in January, the Cavs have had good luck with injuries.

What took more time was figuring out whether they could build the chemistry and whether they could do so under David Blatt. The Cavs’ January trades for J.R. Smith, Iman Shumpert and Timofey Mozgov have largely addressed their roster shortcomings, and not even rumblings that Love is unhappy have been able to derail what has taken the shape of the most dangerous team in the Eastern Conference.

For the Bulls, chemistry has never been the issue. Since Tom Thibodeau’s arrival in 2010, Chicago has had one of the strongest locker rooms in the NBA, full of veteran workers like Noah and Gibson who know their jobs, do them well and have each other’s—and their coach’s—backs. And when they’ve been able to field a complete team, they’ve proven they can beat anybody.

But the full complement of players at peak health has been hard to come by for the Bulls. They’ve played just 19 games with their entire starting lineup intact, going 15-4 in those games. They’ve only had an entirely healthy roster for three games. You don’t need to go through the laundry list of injuries—those two numbers tell the whole story. And as of now, even with Butler and Gibson back in the fold after missing about three weeks each, the Bulls are still waiting on the return of Rose.

As it turns out, chemistry is an easier hurdle to clear than health. That’s why the Cavs enter the final 10-game stretch of the season looking like the favorites to win the Eastern Conference, and the Bulls are all but impossible to project. It’s easier to bet on your elite-level talent when it’s all healthy at the same time on a regular basis.

It’s telling that the Bulls, through all their injuries, haven’t made a single roster move since the start of the season, while the Cavs made two significant trades and brought in veteran big man Kendrick Perkins as a free agent.

Trades like those aren’t made to solve short-term injury issues, especially with a coach who believes as stubbornly as Thibodeau does that the next man up can do the job, no matter who it is. They’re made to address longer-term concerns of talent and fit, which the Cavs had. They needed more shooting, perimeter defense and rim protection, and they addressed all three needs successfully.

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The Bulls’ only need to address is getting healthy. With Gibson out, Nikola Mirotic stepped up. With Butler out, Tony Snell thrived. With Rose out, Aaron Brooks and E’Twaun Moore have contributed quality minutes. But those younger, less proven players’ newfound confidence will be even more dangerous when they’re just small parts of a fully healthy group. All they can do is play the waiting game for that health to materialize.

The Bulls have had the talent and chemistry all year, but the health has come and gone. The Cavs have had the health and the talent, but the chemistry has just now come into focus. If the Bulls get Rose back next week, as seems to be the general belief, they’re poised to enter the final two weeks of the regular season and the playoffs with all three boxes checked.

And if that happens, their ceiling is limitless.

Sean Highkin covers the Chicago Bulls for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter @highkin.